Data communication in modern society is an essential fact of life. The use of computers, cellular (“cell”) phones, and personal digital assistants (“PDAs”) is a daily occurrence for many people. As a result, there is an increasing demand for faster, cheaper, and/or more convenient data communications.
The wireless communications industry attempts to satisfy users by developing hardware and/or software to perform more complex data communications for faster or better results. For example, cell phone and base station developers and/or manufacturers are implementing multi-carrier transmission techniques. Multi-carrier transmission schemes are an evolving phenomena.
Multi-carrier transmissions support multiple users at the same time by spreading data over a wider bandwidth. The data may be spread to improve transmission quality. For example, signal-to-noise and interference ratios may be reduced by spreading data over a wider bandwidth than the data rate.
However, current systems for multi-carrier transmissions inefficiently utilize redundant components, which increases costs and/or power consumption. For example, a multi-carrier transmitter may include redundant voltage controlled oscillators (“VCOs”) or IQ mixers to perform baseband to radio frequency (“RF”) up-conversions. Also, redundant RF filters may be used to suppress noise and/or spurs.